The other day the Seattle
Times’ got the opportunity to scream about a mass shooting (and still didn’t
sell-out the print edition). The crime was committed by Aaron Ybarra, who
killed one and wounded two at Seattle Pacific University, before being disabled
by a hall monitor with pepper spray. Everywhere on the Internet and beyond people
were providing their “fast facts” and “opinions.”
We are still being confronted with a wide array of viewpoints.
Yabrra had a history of mental instability, probably brought on by alcoholism.
He was said to socially “awkward.” While there was nothing particularly
“unusual” about his encounters with police than with any serial inebriate, he
apparently had a decidedly unhealthy fascination with the Columbine Massacre,
and even traveled to the high school in Littleton, Colorado in an apparent
effort to draw “inspiration” to gain his own bloody 15 minutes of “fame”
(although the truncated nature of his efforts put him in the footnote
category). To this purpose he apparently became an “expert” in guns, and
frequented shooting ranges—hardly the occupation of “liberal” Seattleites.
But then there was a “flip-side” which Ybarra’s friends and
acquaintances saw. They saw a “mellow” guy, “super happy and friendly,” an
“awesome guy” who would “never let you down.” Ybarra was a “was an amazing friend. Good
worker. He was really calm and nice. If you know him, you would not think he
would do it -- he’s just not that type that would do something like that.” He
was not a suspicious “loner,” but “sociable” and “nice,” and liked to “party”
with friends. He was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and “turning his
life around.”
There is even “confusion” about what Ybarra is “ethnicity”
is. He was initially described as “Hispanic” by the news media, but police
later described him as a white male, of perhaps a swarthy type as was Elliot
Roger. But in court he looks more Filipino; I suppose no one wants to make
“race” an issue here, perhaps for good reason. His “inspiration” seems not from
some social victimization agenda, but a “thrill” kill for notoriety that other
mass shooters have gained.
While mass shootings are nothing new, they do seem to be happening
in greater frequency in recent years. At least 30 “mass” shooting have occurred
since 2006, although most were no more “mass” than the SPU shooting, despite
the intent. Ybarra seemed to be somewhat inept in his “planning,” since he was
only “loaded” for one “spree” at a time.
Almost all of these mass shooters are seen to be the white
males of the “angry white man” stereotype, who sees the whole world arrayed
against him, or at least one significant segment of it--whether the job, family, hatred of a racial or ethnic group, or just a sense of total alienation. The “angry white man”
phenomenon was allegedly the subject of a 1993 film called Falling Down starring Michael Douglas, who had just been laid-off
and whose wife had placed a restraining order against him, preventing him from
going to his daughter’s birthday party; but his “complaints” about crime, traffic,
high prices, phony advertising, poor service and the like are shared by most
people and are hardly rational reasons to go on a “rampage.” In fact, Douglas’
character never actually kills anyone (just trashes a few establishments and
bongs a few low-lifes) and rather hypocritically does not even have even
vaguely racist thoughts.
However, one can only count on a gender-biased story in TIME magazine to “explain” everything.
In engaging in the usual stereotypes after the Roger shooting, it blamed things
like “testosterone,” the construction of men’s brains and the like to “explain”
the phenomenon, which doesn’t really “stick” until the next shooting, since
there are 150 million males in this country, and it is ridiculous to apply the same
stereotypes to all. If these were “true,” it would only serve the feminist and
female victim myths that all men are potentially
“dangerous.”
Not surprisingly, TIME
quoted a female “researcher” who claimed that women were not like this, because
they only blamed “themselves” for their “problems.” Of course, most men find
this the height of hypocrisy, since all they are hearing is women blaming them for all their “issues.” What they see is women getting a free ride by
the courts in divorce and child custody cases, women making accusations on the
slimmest of reeds and expecting to be not only believed, but seeing the accused
unjustly punished. They see women blaming them
for their failure to do what is educationally necessary to get high-paying but
challenging STEM jobs, and so and so forth.
Whenever gender politics arises in the media, the
victim/victimizer myth is routinely “confirmed.” On television programming—particularly
crime shows—men are always the perpetrators, women nearly always the victims,
flying in the face of the reality; for example, black men are 33 times more likely be the victim of a
homicide than white women. Interestingly, black males are much less likely than
white males to engage in mass shootings of random people (just low-level
drive-by shootings of rival gang members)—despite the fact that one may think
that they have more of a legitimate “gripe” against society than white males, such as high unemployment or a perceived denial of equal opportunity.
And so the world continues to turn. The vast majority of
men, no matter what their complaints are, do not take “revenge” on the world. No
one should have the conceit to pretend to have all the answers, but we do live
in a world where—to quote Noah Cross in Chinatown—“I
don't blame myself. You see, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the
fact that at the right time and the right place, they're capable of anything.”
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